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Navy Electromagnetic Rail Gun Fires GPS Controlled Bullets at 5,600 mph
Gadizmo ^ | 2 August 2012 | R.J. Huneke

Posted on 08/03/2012 6:46:53 AM PDT by moonshot925

What navy would not want a two-foot-long GPS-guided bullet that can be fired from a gargantuan cannon built right into a warship?

Did you know that we already have bullets that can strike an enemy thirty miles away?

This new government project hopes to utilize the current artillery and rail guns aboard US warships, with just a minor tweaking: fast (5,600 mph), GPS-controlled, twenty plus pound bullets that can travel potentially hundreds of miles and strike with pinpoint accuracy.

Announced on July 19, the new program is called Hyper Velocity Projectile, and plans to build on such successes as the 5” Mark 45 Mod guns that already reach farther than 30 miles.

Missiles could very well be going the extinct way of the dinosaurs, as these colossal bullets will be much cheaper and safer to produce in massive quantities.

(Excerpt) Read more at gadizmo.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bullets; hypersonic; navy; railgun
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To: Ben Hecks
This will change deer hunting forever.

And eliminate steaks providing only cooked sausage and ground venison.

41 posted on 08/03/2012 7:33:07 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: Gay State Conservative
“. . . and start firing them at Beijing,Moscow,Tehran,Pakistan,Caracas,Berkeley and DC.”

Not necessarily in that order!

42 posted on 08/03/2012 7:33:06 AM PDT by paratrooper82 (We are kicking Ass in Afghanistan, soon we will be home to kick some more Asses in Congress!)
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To: China Clipper

This is about 0.00008% of light speed.


43 posted on 08/03/2012 7:33:56 AM PDT by null and void (Day 1291 of our ObamaVacation from reality - Heroes aren't made Frank, they're cornered...)
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To: Strategerist; Red Badger; SampleMan; Gay State Conservative

The new Zumwalt class DDG has an integrated power system that is capable of generating 78 MW, 10 times more than the Arleigh Burke which is only capable of generating 7.5 MW.

I wonder if the Zumwalt could handle a railgun in a future upgrade?


44 posted on 08/03/2012 7:36:41 AM PDT by moonshot925
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To: moonshot925
Navy?

The Airforce has had this for YEARS!

Well since season 4-5....

45 posted on 08/03/2012 7:38:45 AM PDT by GraceG
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To: moonshot925

Rail gun? I’d be just as happy with the bug “shotgun” as indicated on the same website.

http://gadizmo.com/bug-a-salt-turns-extermination-into-a-sport.php


46 posted on 08/03/2012 7:44:01 AM PDT by WKUHilltopper (And yet...we continue to tolerate this crap...)
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To: EEGator

Is this covered by CCW?


47 posted on 08/03/2012 7:46:24 AM PDT by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: moonshot925

About a year ago, I was the guest of an official of a major university. Near his desk was a nicely mounted piece of one inch metal plate, about 10 inches square with a 5 inch hole blasted out of the middle. He said this was one plate out of a stack of a dozen or so that had been hit with an slug shot from one of their experimental electromagnetic cannons. He declined to give more details.


48 posted on 08/03/2012 8:07:06 AM PDT by theBuckwheat
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To: GGpaX4DumpedTea

Not that it won’t kill drones too, the point is that they will be harder to kill than manned jets, and.much cheaper. Plus, the pilot doesn’t die with a drone.

The exponentially best aerial defense against rail guns will be to avoid detection. Manned jets are just too big.


49 posted on 08/03/2012 8:32:52 AM PDT by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: albionin
Of course hitting them might be a little tricky.

I wonder. They would have radar, laser, and GPS aiming and tracking capability, plus advance knowledge of exactly how far the satelite is and exactly what direction and how fast it is moving. Also, satelites can not take evasive action.

50 posted on 08/03/2012 8:33:02 AM PDT by sima_yi ( Reporting live from the far North)
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To: All

If we devote every cent from the next 711 FReepathons we can have it!


51 posted on 08/03/2012 8:34:01 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: Red Badger

In Vietnam I used to drift off to sleep listening to the sound of long range artillery (155mm, 8” ???) whispering way overhead. When something started coming down, the old ears said to the sleeping brain, “Wake up everybody, INCOMING!”

You can definitely hear artillery shells passing overhead.


52 posted on 08/03/2012 8:34:58 AM PDT by BwanaNdege (Man has often lost his way, but modern man has lost his address - Gilbert K. Chesterton)
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To: EEGator

Oops, make that 2841 FReepathons.


53 posted on 08/03/2012 8:36:15 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: sima_yi

You’re probably right. Computers could handle it. But any misses would turn into nasty navigational hazards for any E.T’s visiting the system.


54 posted on 08/03/2012 8:43:21 AM PDT by albionin (A gawn fit's aye gettin.)
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To: WKUHilltopper

When I was a kid I’d load sand in the bore of my Daisy pump BB gun, sit on the front porch & shoot flies. Eventually, I worked up to hitting them with BBs instead.

However, the sand didn’t leave dings in the porch boards, so I went back to sand.


55 posted on 08/03/2012 8:43:45 AM PDT by BwanaNdege (Man has often lost his way, but modern man has lost his address - Gilbert K. Chesterton)
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To: BwanaNdege

But they weren’t passing overhead at 3 times the speed of sound............


56 posted on 08/03/2012 8:45:16 AM PDT by Red Badger (Think logically. Act normally.................)
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To: theBuckwheat

IIRC, they used to experiment with plastic slugs in these rail guns.


57 posted on 08/03/2012 8:48:45 AM PDT by BwanaNdege (Man has often lost his way, but modern man has lost his address - Gilbert K. Chesterton)
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To: MrEdd
“When this is fieldable, it changes the ballance between air and ground units.”
- How so?

“This has been in the works for a long time, and is a primary driving force behind the push for the development of small, harder to detect and kill unmanned drones.”
- What do drones have to do with this? Surely, you're not thinking we can arm airborne drones with this?

58 posted on 08/03/2012 9:05:44 AM PDT by ryan71
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To: Red Badger

Sonic boom is sonic boom. I’d guess Mach 3 ia a louder boom than Mach 1.7.

M114 155mm Howitzer - Muzzle velocity 563 m/s (1,847 ft/s) (Mach 1.69)

8 in Gun M1 - Muzzle velocity 866 m/s, Mach 2.6


59 posted on 08/03/2012 9:07:13 AM PDT by BwanaNdege (Man has often lost his way, but modern man has lost his address - Gilbert K. Chesterton)
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To: theBuckwheat

I am making a desk ornament for my son ....it is a test projectile slug that was fired from one of those EM rail guns - fired at NSWC Dahlgren in Virginia. He acquired the test slug when he was doing an internship as part of a “super Senior thesis project” while attending USNA. My son gave me the the slug when he completed the internship - but I figured I would make it into a nice desk ornament for him in the future. When completed, it will be a nice ornamental paper holder that is as intriquing as the metal plates with the hole in it!! (The slug is a small aluminum billet that weighs about 4 lbs....and has some interesting deformations. It was fired into a sand-pit to absorb/dissapate the kinetic energy.)

Rail guns sound great, but there are many big technology hurdles remain to be solved before a suitable rail gun will be put into operation! The “ALL ELECTRIC” ship basically means that your power generation is electric first, and then you have electric motors connected to the propellors (instead of the turbines - through reduction gears, driving the propellor.) The ship might be making flank bell - and then temporarily shift power from the shaft to the EM rail gun energy bank - it might take 10 seconds to charge the energy storage bank - then power is switched back to propulsion. [sounds very Trekkie - charge phasor banks, shift power from life support to shields ....etc.!!]


60 posted on 08/03/2012 9:23:26 AM PDT by Vineyard
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